‘Cats Corner is the official blog for the Tri-City ValleyCats, Short Season Single-A affiliate of the Houston Astros, and member of the historic New York-Penn League. 'Cats Corner consistently ranks as one of the top 50 professional blogs on the MLB.com network. With game and promotional recaps, team analysis and more, 'Cats Corner is ValleyCats fans #1 source for information.

Pre-Game Meal – Playoff Edition: Game 2 (9/9/12)

by: Evan Valenti (@EvanValenti)

Afternoon folks! Welcome back to “The Joe” on this opening week of the NFL season. ValleyCats getting ready to take on Auburn Doubledays for game two of this best-of-three series. Here are the tidbits from today:

1.) The ValleyCats and Doubledays have faced off in the playoffs once before. In the 2006 opening-round series the ‘Cats swept Auburn by the scores of 1-0 and 4-3. Friday night marked the third one-run win for Tri-City against the now-Nationals affiliate.

2.) Shortstop Joe Sclafani has a mild ankle sprain on his left ankle. He sprained in during the five-hit game against the Hudson Valley Renegades on September 4. It doesn’t seem to be bothering him too much. He’s 2-9 with the mild sprain, including his first career home run as a professional. He put in multiple good rounds during today’s batting practice.

3.) Fatigue is starting to really take a toll on everyone, but the casual baseball fan wouln’t notice. Catfish Elkins explained to me that he’s not necessarily “tired”, but he says his bat speed has regressed just a hair.

4.) Dan Gulbransen loves to leave on a high note. Each batter gets three swings in the final round of batting practice. Gulbransen hit a solid line drive to the opposite field and immediately left the cage. Why? He believes that batting practice should end on a high note, and as soon as he puts a good swing on it he will call it a day.

Batting Practice Hero: How could it not be Dan Gulbransen? He did hit two line drive home runs, but that last swing was a thing of beauty. He left me wanting more. Kind of like some other guy I know. His name is George Castanza. Props if you get the reference.

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